George W. Randolph

George Wythe Randolph (10 March 1818-3 April 1867) was Confederate Secretary of War from 24 March to 15 November 1862, succeeding Judah P. Benjamin and preceding James Seddon.

Biography
George Wythe Randolph was born in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1818, the son of Thomas Mann Randolph Jr. and the grandson of Thomas Jefferson through his mother. He served as a midshipman in the US Navy from 1831 to 1839 and became a lawyer in 1840, moving to Richmond in 1849. At the start of the American Civil War, he joined a delegation which failed to convince President Abraham Lincoln to evacuate the federal forts in the American South. He became a colonel in the Confederate States Army and fought at the Battle of Big Bethel, and he went on to serve as Secretary of War from March to November 1862, overseeing the strengthening of the Confederacy's southern and western defenses. He resigned after falling ill with tuberculosis, and he went into exile in England and France with his family before returning to Virginia in 1866. He died in 1867 and was buried in the Jefferson family's graveyard at Monticello.